Bookishly Jewish

Continuing on with the genre reveals, today we feature the science fiction and fantasy picks! We’ve got reviews up for four of these books, plus an author interview for a fifth. And one is burning a hole in my kindle just waiting to be read.

Eternal Life by Dara Horn: Bookshop | Amazon

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo: Bookshop | Amazon

Hereville by Barry Deutsch: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review

Naomi Teitelbaum Ends the World by Samara Shanker: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review

The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review

Roma Eterna by Robert Silverberg: Bookshop | Amazon

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novick: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review

Starglass by Phoebe North: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review

Torth Majority by Abby Goldsmith: Author Interview| Amazon

Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros: Bookshop | Amazon

Today is the nonfiction reveal, and I definitely have some work to do to expand the nonfiction section. I’ve read one of these and have plans to review it, but I need to get on the others ASAP. Calling all guest reviewers – help me out!

Find the Books:

A Bintel Brief by Issac Metzker: Bookshop | Amazon

All Who God Do Not Return by Shulem Deen: Bookshop | Amazon

Jews, God, and History by Max I. Dimont: Bookshop | Amazon

John Lennon And The Jews by Ze’ev Maghen: Bookshop | Amazon

The Light of Days by Judy Batalion: Bookshop | Amazon

My Life by Golda Meir: Amazon

On Repentance and Repair by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg: Bookshop | Amazon

People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn: Bookshop | Amazon

The Story of the Jews by Simon Schama: Bookshop | Amazon

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi: Bookshop | Amazon

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom: Bookshop | Amazon

The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger: Bookshop | Amazon

Wrestling With God and Men by Steven Greenberg: Bookshop | Amazon

I am really pleased to announce the reader picks in the “Best Overall Jewish Book” category.

I won’t tell you which books got the most votes, but I can share a few fun facts:

-BookishlyJewish has reviews up for five of them (links below)

-There’s an additional book I’ve read but still haven’t gotten around to reviewing

-Two are so high on my TBR I already own them. They stare at me balefully as I type this. (Can you guess which?)

-There’s a nice mix of fiction and nonfiction

-Three of these books were not on my radar, but now they are

-Our younger readers have participated! Plus some nostalgic grown ups! Love that we got some children’s literature on here.

Stay tuned as we release the results for individual categories throughout the week. There are a lot of fun and surprising picks. Your TBR is sure to grow.

Find the books:

• All Who Go Do Not Return by Shulem Deen, nonfiction: Bookshop | Amazon
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, speculative literary: Bookshop | Amazon
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok, historical fiction: Bookshop | Amazon
• The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman, historical fiction: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review
• Eternal Life by Dara Horn, speculative literary: Bookshop | Amazon
• Exodus by Leon Uris, historical fiction: Bookshop | Amazon
• Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, picture book: Bookshop | Amazon
• His Master’s Voice by Stanislaw Lem, science fiction: Bookshop | Amazon
• Kissing Kosher by Jean Meltzer, romance: Bookshop | Amazon
• Max in the House of Spies by Adam Gidwitz, middle grade: Bookshop | Amazon
• A Mothers Secret by Carolyn Haddad, historical fiction: Amazon
• Mr. Perfect on Paper by Jean Meltzer, adult romance: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish review
• People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn, nonfiction: Bookshop | Amazon
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, historical fiction: Bookshop | Amazon
• The Schlemiel Kids Save The Moon by Audrey Barbakoff and illustrated by Rotem Teplow, picture book: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review
• Thistelfoot by GennaRose Nethercott, fantasy: Bookshop | Amazon | BookishlyJewish Review
• The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish, literary fiction: Bookshop | Amazon

The best way for me to review children’s books, particularly picture books, is to read them to a child. So when I heard Ruth Horowitz had a new picture book coming out, I set about recruiting a child to participate in reading The Midnight Mitzvah with me. Luckily, most children enjoy being read to and this was not a difficult position to fill. Especially since the illustrations by Jenny Meilhove were particularly inviting.

Full disclosure – we read this on a computer so the full board book experience is not here, but I did read it out loud and the aforementioned toddler was very happy to snuggle up and listen. They even tried to touch the screen the same way they would turn the pages of a physical book. As this was 3-year-old, the full plot, which involves an important lesson about how charity is best performed in secret, may have flown over their head. It was, however, grasped by the older siblings who kept pretending they were not listening to the book. They commented on how this preserves the recipients dignity, with the oldest even mentioning they learned about this in the laws of tzedakah -charity – laid out by Moses Maimonides. They shared their thoughts on the topic and many text to self connections were made.

I mostly enjoyed how the featured chipmunk is a stand in for a respected Rabbi in a famous old Jewish tale. There’s nothing like involving the local wild life to make a story feel fresh.

The text is not heavy handed, and there is a tense moment in the forest at night before we learn that all is well. This provides just enough emotional tension to keep little listeners engaged.

But back to the three-year-old. This particular child was very excited to point out and name all the different animals as well as the moon which is drawn with a variety of facial expressions. When we finished The Midnight Mitzvah, there was a request asked for more books to be read. Which is a sure sign of success – the audience asked for an encore! How fortunate for us that Horowitz has more books for us to read together.

Note: BookishlyJewish received a free e-arc from the author after we expressed interest in one.

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Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon

I’ve written before about how prayer has never been my particular form of connection to Judaism, but I’ve never touched on what it means to go to Synagogue. Synagogue is about more than just prayer. It’s a social gathering, a means of building community and catching up with friends. However, services can also be incredibly long which is rough on children. For that reason, my friends and I would sneak out and play “squares” on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, the protagonist of Sarah Kapit’s delightful new illustrated chapter book, Rachel Friedman Breaks The Rules, has no such recourse. 

As my Bubbie would say, Rachel has no zitzfleish. She has ADHD and cannot sit still for services. She also struggles to follow the most basic rules laid out for her by her father, like not crossing the street alone. Sometimes her rule breaking pans out – putting peanut butter in challah dough is apparently delicious. Other times her impulsivity is a problem – eating snacks in the middle of services and disturbing the congregants is definitely not the way to go. Luckily, Rachel has some something I did not. A very supportive and engaged Rabbi who helps her work through this. 

The characters in the books are diverse. Rachel’s  father is a single Dad trying to figure out how to raise two kids on his own since their mother passed away. Her best friend has two moms and the congregants in her Synagogue come from many different backgrounds. Plus, the Rabbi that helps Rachel and her dad sort through their rule breaking issues is a woman. 

Rachel is a likeable character that I’m sure many children in the target age group will relate to. She’s also Jewish, and the star of a whole new series of chapter books that includes spunky illustrations. While she may have a bigger personality than me, and practices a different variety of Judaism than I did, I think my child self would have been delighted to know she was out there. Maybe even encounter her in a regular library instead of one exclusive to the community and stocking only books from independent Jewish publishing presses. 

I’m sure Rachel’s further adventures will prove just as exciting as Rachel Friedman Breaks The Rules. I’m hoping they also incorporate themes of Jewish leaning just like this first book did. Watching Rachel claim her Jewish identity as part and parcel of her personality- which some may see as a problem until the Rabbi teacher them otherwise- was a powerful moment. Young readers everywhere, both Jewish and not, are sure to relate.  

Note: BookishlyJewish received a free copy of this book from the publisher

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Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon

There have been tons of “Top 100” Lists floating around recently. Here at BookishlyJewish we don’t rank our books because we love ALL the Jewish books, realize we cannot possibly have read them all, and are feverishly trying to support as many as we can. However, we are always curious what our readers are loving! So we thought it would be fun to have a little unofficial readers poll.

Feel free to vote for a book in as many categories as it fits and to skip a category that doesn’t speak to you. Torah commentaries are fine, but please don’t vote for the actual Torah (ie: Guide To The perplexed is fair game but Leviticus is not.)

You have to sign in to google to vote, but it won’t collect your email. It’s just to limit it to one response per account. Because apparently even when there are no prizes planned, people still try to game the system on these things.

Voting remains open until August 1. CLICK HERE to vote.

A while ago, during a late night at work, my co-workers and I began chatting about the lottery. People started listing the expensive purchases and life changes they would make if they hit it big. A large portion would quit their jobs, but I wasn’t so sure. I said I wouldn’t change my lifestyle enough for the win to be noticeable. One of the other team members agreed- stating that he would not even switch his apartment. Instead, he would simply buy a second, secret, apartment where he could enjoy cool stuff without anyone hitting him up for money. You see, he and I both knew that winning the lottery is not always all it’s cracked up to be. The Jacobson siblings in Elyssa Friedland’s novel Jackpot Summer would have benefited significantly if they had a similar conversation.

While there are four Jacobson siblings – Matthew, Laura, Sophia, and Noah – only three of them go in on lottery tickets together. Matthew, the oldest and richest of them all pre-lotto, follows his wife Beth’s advice and opts out. Boy does he learn to regret it.

His siblings quickly discover that money does not solve all problems. Laura tries to use cash to fix her broken marriage and convince her kids to come home more, but nobody likes being controlled by their purse strings. Sophie uses the money to quit her day job and create art – only to find she’s so in her head over the win she can no longer paint. Noah, the baby, who was floating around aimlessly performing tech repair before the win now has a million people calling him for money and can’t seem to find anyone interested in him for something other than a check.

Pile onto that the fact that the siblings are dealing with the fallout of three of them becoming millionaires while the fourth must still work a job he hates, and you can see how the family dynamics are strained. Plus, the matriarch who used to keep the peace passed away a year ago and their father is all but absentee parenting as her retires to Boca and whiles away his days playing pickle ball.

I found myself finding some of the financials in the book extremely dubious. We are given a realistic picture of what would actually be left for each sibling after taxes (spoiler alert – way less than the advertised jackpot) and while it is still a nice chunk of change, I find it difficult to believe it would be enough for the lifestyles described. This is especially true in the case of Laura, who buys a multi million dollar home and then sets off and numerous luxury vacations all while spoiling her college aged daughters whose tuition’s she’s paying. Ironically it is Matthew’s wife Beth, the one who refused to buy a ticket, who points out that the Jacobson’s were rich before they ever won the lottery. They had a second home on the Jersey shore growing up. They participated in extracurricular activities and their parents through neighborhood parties and charity events. Beth’s speech pointing out the privilege in all of that was one of the best parts of the book and made me forgive the wonky real estate and travel spending that should have eaten through that lotto money within months.

Each Jacobson story is unique and they all have their own lessons to learn, but together the reader comes away feeling fulfilled. I found myself sucked in to the family saga, especially as it is told with humor. My favorite part related to a certain piece of jewelry and the revelations about their deceased mother that come at the end. Because really, we all mess up from time to time, but the point is to at least try. When the siblings realize this they are able to move forward together.

Note: BookishlyJewish received an e-arc of this book from the publisher.

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Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon

It feels oddly like a provocative act to review a novel about present day Israel, as to even breathe the name of that country is so fraught with opposed opinions these days. On Her Own, a novel by Lihi Lapid, translated from the original Hebrew, is about an Israel beneath and apart from the headlines, written
before October 7, a smaller picture in already small country. Told primarily through the eyes of its female characters, it’s a story of ordinary people living in a most non-ordinary country.

At the center is rebellious teenager Nina, who takes up with an older married man with an unsavory criminal reputation, much to the consternation of her single mother, Irina, an immigrant from Kiev, still Russia when she emigrated. It’s the Persephene-Demeter tale from Greek mythology, as Irina wistfully recalls how her daughter, now missing, has changed:

She remembers…the bond they had, and thinks about how much has changed this year since she shot up and started watching what she eats and her cheeks aren’t like two jelly doughnuts anymore, and the admiring way she always looked at Irina dropped away along with her baby fat.

Finding herself in a dangerous situation – we aren’t told the exact details – Nina escapes the dark world of her boyfriend, and lands, disoriented and disheveled, in the doorway of a Tel Aviv apartment building. There she meets Carmela, an elderly woman living alone. In the fog of dementia, Carmela mistakes Nina for the granddaughter she longs to see, the child of her son, Itamar, who left for America many years ago.

As Nina decides to go along with this confusion of identity, she develops a sweetly caring relationship for Carmela, who is clearly in dire need of companionship and basic care. Needing to buy supplies,  she meets Eitan, a young man who works at the nearby mini-mart. Eitan quickly catches on to Nina’s deception, but as he is increasingly romantically captivated by her, does not let on that he knows something is amiss.

Like a tossed rock making ever wider ripples in a pond, the story expands to include a wider circle of characters At times, the hopscotching from person to person becomes disorienting, keeping the Israeli names straight, and who is what in relation to whom. But it is an engaging human story; a mother missing a daughter who has gone astray, the grandmother who likely knows in some part of her brain that she is being deceived, but enjoys the attention of the stranger taking care of her, and Nina, the young woman who discovers a sense of self-worth at last.

At its heart, it’s a distillation of the anomie and disruption that is a common feature of contemporary life. Millions across the world are now refugees for reasons of conflict or economic hardship, and young digital nomads who move about simply because they can. The fallout from such global movement is a breakdown of family structure which had before provided stability and a support system.

It is through the eyes of Carmela’s son, Itamar, who deserted his home country for greater opportunity, that this modern dislocation is reflected upon:

Is something really wrong with Mom, or is it him, with his feelings of guilt for what he did? He, the deserter. The traitor. The coward. The sellout. How many times had he heard his parents say those words about their friends’ children who had left the country. Words used by Israelis of their generation who built the country and saw their children leaving it, trickling out. His generation gives it a different label. Relocation, they call it. Fulfilling themselves, realizing their potential somewhere in Silicon Valley, in the London Stock exchange…But at the end of all that globalness, he thinks, is an old woman who’s been left alone on the other side of the ocean.

Ironically – the country of Israel, as conceived by its idealistic founders, was conceived as a place of communal living structures, like the kibbutz, where social and cultural life is a shared experience. So all the more striking in the contrast.

In On her Own, we are shown a picture of life in Israel that is radically different from that vision. It is one where criminal activity and corruption have become common, and while military activity is never far from daily life – Carmela had another son who was killed in an army operation many years before – the novel takes place in a period of relative peace in Israel and of course, relative is the key word here, as it has always been when speaking about Israel and the Middle East, in general. 

On Her Own is a book of modest wisdom about mothers and daughters, which pulls the reader into its web of connections and provides an unusual window into Israeli society. This book, translated by Sondra Silverston, is the first by the author to be translated into English.

Reviewer bio: Lisa Seidenberg is a writer and filmmaker residing in coastal Connecticut. Her documentary films were shown in Berlin Film Festival, Doc.London, Sundance Festival and others. Recent writing was published in Atticus Review, Asymptote Journal, One Art: A Journal of Poetry, NewVerseNews. Her art book Dark Pools: Historic Swimming Pools of Berlin is distributed by PrintedMatter.

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Find It: Goodreads | Bookshop | Amazon